The Collected Letters, Volume 15

I feel so annoyed at the upshot or probable upshot of our New Zealand speculation that I hardly can put it in words: so I
forward a part of my Husband's last letter to me, with a note from Mr. C. Buller, to tell their own story. I distinctly think
with Carlyle that any adventure which George Rennie is at the head of would need ‘to be looked at on both sides’ before connecting
John with it—George Rennie, tho' a clever and enterprising man, has some want of perseverance or other want in him which hinders his ever succeeding in any business he undertakes, besides I do not like his principles of action which are all for his own vulgar
aggrandisement— Hang him anyhow for having so misled me in the present case!—to have heard the decided way in which he talked
no one would have suspected any more than myself that he was talking either without full knowledge or with wilful mystification.
Carlyle says ‘exhort you to patience’— I fancy you are better at practising patience than I am at merely preaching it. One
thing be sure of; that we shall be constantly on the outlook for some situation for John until he be fairly employed. Surely
among our many friends in authority, some one may be found to give him a helping hand.1

1. John Welsh was engaged on the advice of one of his professors at Edinburgh, J. D. Forbes, as observer at Sir Thomas Makdougall-Brisbane's
observatory at Makerstoun, Roxburghshire, Dec. 1842 to 1850; asst. at Kew Observatory, 1850, and supt., 1852 to his death. F.R.S., 1857; apptd. to undertake North British division of a magnetic survey of British Isles, 1857–58; spent winter of 1858–59 with his mother at Falmouth, where he d. of consumption. Huxley says that it was from 1850 that he made real acquaintance with the Carlyles.